Something To Hold On To
by randomcat23
Summary: Carol doesn't dream about Sophia anymore. Late Season 5 timeline, established Caryl.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own The Walking Dead.

 **Author's note:** This story takes place in the same universe as some of my other stories, including _Georgia_ and _The House is Theirs_. I don't think it's necessary to read those but, for anyone curious, it fits in with that version of Alexandria.

* * *

She doesn't dream about Sophia anymore.

The realization comes quietly but starkly, like a midnight knock at the door. Carol drops her book and her eyes dart around the room looking for the unannounced visitor. Daryl is passed out on the far couch, his newly carved antler knife handles on the table. Two mugs, now cold, mark the passage of night. Carol licks her lower lip and catches the last remnants of lemon tea.

Reality confirmed, Carol tears through her hazy dream log, recalling all the times her daughter visited her at night. Sometimes in their backyard in Georgia, more often on an unknown beach. Never as a young child. Since she got lost in the woods, Sophia always appeared alive with her hands on her hips and exasperation in her smile, _"I was right here the whole time, Mama!"_

The dream had been reliable in the manner of summer storms; she was never sure when they'd hit, but eventually one would. She could go weeks to months without one and then start the next day with tears in her eyes. Maybe it was a cruel dream, showing her an impossible future, but she had come to accept them and their little bittersweet twists to her heart. She'd wake up and cling to Sophia's image as it shifted out of focus and then faded completely.

Try as she might, Carol can't recall the last time she woke up with that stone on her chest. She can't remember any dreams from this past week. The month before draws blanks and gets worse the further back she goes. There are nightmares, weird collections of people and events, nonsensical visions she laughed about afterwards.

But no Sophia.

She hums trepidation into the night, fingers deep in the couch cushion. She holds on for a last minute recollection, but the night remains silent. Frowning at the lack luster fallout, she releases the cushion and stands. It's too late to restart her book, so Carol gathers the mugs and walks them to the sink. Returning to the living room, she tilts her head slightly at shadows and waits for raging thoughts to overwhelm the quiet. Yet the velvety darkness reveals no monsters, no dream. There's just the hum of the refrigerator and Daryl's soft snores.

Carol scoffs at herself and prods Daryl. "You'll get a crook in your neck if you stay like that."

He blinks at her slowly before awareness replaces foggy sleep. She enjoys the weight of him as he tugs her hand and promises, "Be up in a minute."

With that, Carol pads up the stairs, pausing halfway to peer over her shoulder. Unsure if she's waiting for Daryl or for the dream she'd thought she'd always have, she abandons the staircase with a huff.

In bed, she wraps the sheet around her shoulders and pinches her eyes shut. The door opens and closes. There's shuffling as Daryl trades his jeans for sweatpants, button down for a T-shirt. She keeps her back to him as he joins her and the mattress adjusts.

All the usual repetitive actions that precede sleep.

But sleep doesn't come.

Carol's eyes pop open.

The bedroom wall is a good canvas for glaring while thinking. On its blank expanse she tries to conjure up Sophia's face. Not the one from her dream, but as she looked alive. Horror knifes her heart as the bitten, hungry thing that crawled out of the barn is the first image in her head. Carol snaps her eyelids shut and tries to peel back the torn skin, wash away the blood from her daughter's neck. But all that is left is a fuzzy version, like a photo taken in motion. Her freckle pattern is forgotten; the exact way Sophia parted her hair is a mystery. Small details that would have come easy are now best guesses.

Carol stares at the wall and every time she thinks she remembers a detail, it's smudged with doubt. When she flips over to her back, the ceiling is no better at sparking memories than the wall. She sighs and pulls the sheet tighter.

How has she forgotten?

Ragged bits of memories come together, like Sophia's first birthday, the night Ed shoved them in the car to Atlanta, relaxing in CDC drunk off of the safety as much as the wine. None of them are whole anymore, all the images are soft around the edges. Still, she tries to recall details to fill out Sophia's face.

Pushing through her thoughts was like wading through rough seas. Instead of winning against the tide, she is more and more often tossed and tumbled in a mix of piecemeal images, never closer to a clear memory. Still, she persists, trying to summon the perfect memories that must be buried somewhere. Fingers fisting the sheets, brows furrowed deeply, the fruitless exercise continues until her mind and body aches.

Her only accomplishment is watching the sun rise before Daryl wakes up. Feigning sleep, she relaxes her body just as he stirs. Daryl eventually rolls over and finds her shoulder in the dim light. The kiss is coupled with a gruff "Love ya." Then he's up and tucking the blankets back around her body. A moment later, the stairs creak under his weight.

She waits the appropriate amount of time before following him, leaving her daughter's blurry image behind.

* * *

"I think Glenn's finally gettin' to the end."

Carol smiles lightly. Glenn's been recounting _Lord of the Rings_ to Daryl during their weekly shared watch shift. As much as he grumbles about Glenn's long-winded story telling (a trait inherent to Tolkien, as she told him), she knows Daryl looks forward to it; the books have appeared on his desk, the dog-eared corner slowly traveling toward the back cover.

He's lacing up his boots when their old promise pokes her in the middle of her back. To not travel the road of painful and confusing thoughts alone, to not convince herself it is nothing when it clearly is something. She just spent the last six hours awake, begging the night for answers. Resigned, Carol swallows the lump in her throat.

Lunch and water stashed, Daryl's half way out the door when she swings a verbal lasso around him.

"Before you go, if you don't mind."

He throws down his backpack and takes her gently in his arms. She didn't realize she was trembling. Annoyed, Carol wills her body into stone.

"What is it?" He tips her chin upward and when she meets his eyes they demand honesty.

The admission clings to the back of her throat. She wasn't dreaming about her dead daughter being alive anymore, so what? It should be a happy thing to not wake up and have to abandon that fantasy.

Carol sighs and turns out of his grasp. "Oh, never mind."

"Ya sure?"

"Yes, yes. Later." She throws on a smile that he sees through. Ice flashes across his gaze, telling her that he's willing to dig in his heels, much like he did years ago during a stormy night on the floor of the barn.

Carol lifts herself to kiss him.

"Alright," he relents when she pulls away.

As soon as the door closes Carol shakes herself from her shoulders to her toes. Determined to not waste a day due to an absence of dreams and the usual fading of memory, she dresses and leaves to meet Rick.

* * *

The apples are large this year, unblemished and a lovely red. She and Rick pick bunches, alternating filling baskets with watching for walkers. It's Rick's turn to play farmer, so she surveys the woods with a lazy gait around the fence line.

Carol smiles at the new additions to Alexandria's orchard, fledgling peach and pear trees. In a few years they'd have two new sources for fruit pies and canned goods. Although they are community trees, it was her idea to expand the orchard. Therefore, she already decided Daryl gets the first batch of peaches.

"I like to think Hershel would applaud our efforts," Rick comments, startling Carol out of her musing. The closest tree fights to keep its fruit, but loses against Rick's tug.

The dark part of her, the hardened part that won't die (she won't let it), is glad she has a knife when alone with Rick. Especially when he decides to bring up that time in their lives. In a few casual words he had shattered her life. She won't let it happen again, not that she really felt it would; Rick's not the same as he was then.

Still.

The knife at her hip is a comforting defense against deeply rooted bitterness. Carol taps the handle before answering.

"He would definitely approve of your hat," she teases and Rick touches the straw brim. In his sheepish smile Carol sees the police officer she met at the quarry. Lori's husband, a man of honor. Carol shakes her head as Rick joins three more apples with their fellows in the basket.

The old days are easier to bring up outside the walls, as if the walls kept out ghosts as well as walkers and the unwanted. Maybe it's because out here it's obvious the world has fallen and they are forced to remember everything they have lost on their way to earning secure lives. Sun bleached bones poke out underneath leaves. Bullet casings hint at years of defensive shots. Long scratch marks blemish the walls. There are less walkers now, but the world is still scarred and quiet. It's peaceful and barbaric, somehow inviting that raw kind of memory.

Carol presses her lips together, dismissing the image of a barn creeping through her mind.

"I didn't do right by him," Rick continues his small musing. He plucks at his gloves and gives her a quick, sad look. "But, when I'm out here, it feels like I am."

She touches her knife again, though she can't say why the comfort was needed this time. The worn leather, smoothed by sweat and fingers, usually steadies her throbbing heart, but fails. Something cracked her defenses and it surely wasn't Rick lamenting Hershel. Her irritation grows with every apple Rick picks, or disregards as not ripe enough. She grits her teeth at the sound of shaking leaves. Itchiness flashes across her skin and for the first time in a long time, Carol wishes for a walker to wander near just so she has something to stab.

Brows furrowed, Carol rushes to add the final two handfuls of fruit to fill the basket. "Here. I'm getting hungry," she counters his perplexed look.

"Fair enough." Rick loops the straps over his shoulders and the two of them head back toward the gate.

* * *

Over a cup of coffee, the loss hits her.

She fingers the spot on her wrist where she used to wear Sophia's hair tie. The small thing had snapped years ago, the elastic stretched and the fabric frayed. It had hurt finding it gone one day, but never unnerved her to the point of contemplation. Little did she know she was clinging to those dreams, a safety line against fading memory.

And now they are gone too.

She runs upstairs and starts a futile search for anything. A picture tucked in a book. Maybe a fragment of her daughter's doll. That first Cherokee Rose. Anything. She knows it's all ashes, but she's compelled to dump out her sock drawer and scatter the notes on her end table. In her frenzy, Carol covers the floor in clothing, notebooks, pens, and blankets. Drawers emptied, shoulders slumped, she surveys the mess.

Coming up empty chokes her.

Turns out the wall she had stared at the night before had the answer all along. There was nothing left without that dream, the last reliable connection to her daughter.

Numb, Carol slowly picks up each discarded item and sorts it on the bed. While doing so, she automatically ticks off the age of the item. This piece had been pulled from a trailer outside of Atlanta. That pair of pants, an ivy choked barn. Everything is from after the world fell. Everything is new and without history.

"That's it? Done with me and movin' on?"

Carol whips around and finds Daryl leaning against the doorframe. He gestures to her neat piles on the bed, a small twist to his mouth.

Despite herself, despite how distracted she is, she laughs at his joke. He's gorgeous in his rough way, taking up the entry with those broad shoulders. His recently cut hair just barely sweeps over his brow. Part of her misses the longer locks, especially now with how the shorter hair frames his face. Even with the deeper wrinkles around his eyes, Daryl looks younger, much like he did when they lived at the prison.

She bites her lip.

He pushes off the frame and joins her with the piles.

Buying herself a few seconds, she asks, "How was watch?"

"Fine. Glenn had to leave early so I still don' know if Frodo destroys the damn ring."

She snorts at his disappointment and winks. "I promise I won't spoil it."

Just as Daryl hums and nudges her shoulder, a pair of socks rolls off its pile. The small movement brings them back to the scene before them: all her belongings laid out for the world to see. It can't be for reorganization since she's the most organized person in Alexandria. So, Daryl puts the socks back where they were and glances at her steadily.

Carol links her hands in front of her body, careful to only meet his eyes halfway. Softly she admits, "I was looking for something of Sophia's."

Daryl licks his lips. He doesn't have to ask if she found anything. Physical ties have gone the way of the dodo. There are too many bodies buried where they can't visit. They don't have Hershel's Bible or Lori's headband. There's nothing left of those they left behind except for faded memories.

He brushes her wrist with a feather light touch. "Miss her today, huh?"

She nods. Knowing there is no getting back what was lost, nothing to spur hidden memories and that shock of joy that comes with unearthing something so precious, Carol caves and folds herself into Daryl's arms with an uneven sigh.

It would be easy to promise that the dreams would return. But that moment on the couch was more of a conclusion than a realization. She wouldn't be dreaming about her daughter, at least not like that, anymore.

It strikes her then why she was so upset in the apple orchard today. Rick using the knowledge Hershel left him was like a tribute, a way to keep Hershel with them. The older man's farming mannerisms were carefully woven into Rick's actions. And it wasn't just Hershel they remembered through living. Carol saw Beth too, any time Maggie sang. The shadowy voice telling them to be better people was T-Dog. Tyreese, when they treated strangers with kindness and forgave those who wrong them.

Their images are sharper, more defined.

Carol shivers with the thought because she can't think of how she memorializes her daughter.

"I'm afraid I'm losing her," she whispers into his shirt.

He stiffens, ready to argue because he's always willing to fight for her. "Carol-"

She shakes her head and briefly squeezes two of his fingers.

"I wish I had one photograph," she murmurs, still half hating her weakness over something so small. She collects herself with a deep breath and steps back. "That's all," Carol finishes with a shrug, turning away from his frown and grasping hands.

"Hey," he tries, but she cuts him off.

"It's alright, Daryl, really." Carol picks up a pile of shirts and slides it back into its drawer. "I just needed to vent," she adds over her shoulder as she continues to put all her belongings back in place.

The socks go back one pair at a time. All the stacks of shirts slide easily into place. Somewhere between restacking notes and correcting a crooked drawer, Daryl disappears. She relaxes because there isn't anything to solve here, there isn't an answer. Sometimes Daryl forgets he can't fix it all. Sometimes she has to remind him that it's okay to let her mull in these thoughts without an answer, that listening is enough.

Just as she corrects the nightstand, Daryl's stomps pound up the stairs and into their room.

He holds out a journal. It's decorated with tiny, red flowers, the corners of the cover curled. It's charming, the type of thing teenagers would put a lock on and keep hidden from their parents. Carol narrows her eyes at it, uncertain. She has a stack of notebooks already for notes, calendars, ideas, and remarks on what works and what doesn't. Records of births, deaths, weather events and resulting damage. This one is unrecognizable to her.

At his insistence, she plucks it from his grasp and asks, "What's this?"

Like honey, his voice sticks in this throat a bit. "When ya remember somethin' maybe you could write it down, ya know?"

Carol flips through the blank pages, pondering. Take the fragile memories and put them to paper, give them some form of permanence. It's not a pressed flower or a photograph, but it's something to hold on to. It's surely better than a dream. Her heart swells and she clutches the small book to her chest.

"Thank you."

Daryl presses a kiss to her forehead. "Come on," he offers, slipping a hand around her. She lets him lead her downstairs and they settle into their spots from last night. Soon, the methodical strikes of Daryl's knife along wood fill the room with soft _skritch_ s. Back on the couch where the realization had come, Carol grips the journal afraid it could float away along with her dream.

Carol opens the cover and runs a finger over the first page. Does she have enough memories to fill this book or have too many abandoned her? Should she start chronologically or just write whatever came to her? Without guidance, the pen rattles in her fingers. All twelve years of her daughter's life flash before her, she couldn't focus on one moment long enough to picture it. Carol smiles tightly and tries to keep the tears at bay.

Nothing.

Just when she's about to set the entire project aside and wash dishes instead, a memory strikes her.

A small one and relatively recent, but it's crystal clear.

The day after she had driven a pickax through Ed's head, Sophia had tucked herself into her side. They were both grimy, dust clinging to their sweat. Carol remembers how parched her throat was and the pull in her shoulder from swinging the ax. They were just sitting in a relative state of calm as the group moved around them.

Carol frowns, recalling Andrea's sobs in the distance and the way Shane had kept trying to catch Lori's gaze. They were all exhausted, waiting for their next move, but in a weird way, she had been happy with her husband dead and her daughter near. She had kept to herself that day, trying to decide whether or not her glee at Ed's demise was sinful. The smell of the lake nearby had just hit her when Sophia shifted. She remembers looking down at her girl, expecting tears or fear, a question maybe. Instead Sophia had said simply, _"I love you, Mama."_

Carol grips the pen and starts to write.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thanks for reading! Feedback is greatly appreciated.-randomcat23


End file.
